The present invention relates to a method of and apparatus for combinatorial computation in a combinatorial weighing system having a plurality of weighing heads for producing weighing data items which are combined to give a desired total weight, the number of the weighing data items which are added together in combinations being limited to thereby reduce the time required for the combinatorial computation.
There have heretofore been used combinatorial weighing or counting apparatus of the type in which a multiplicity of articles are divided and weighed by a plurality of weighing heads that produce a plurality of weighing data items, which are added in combinations, and one of such combinations is selected which gives an added combinatorial value equal or closest to a weight setting. The combinatorial weighing or counting apparatus serve the purpose of exactly sorting out articles having a set total weight or a set number of articles. The apparatus can dispense articles having a total weight precisely or approximately equal to a weight setting, or a desired number of articles having a total weight precisely or approximately equal a weight setting by way of combinatorial addition of unit weights of articles to be weighed, even when the unit weights differ from one another.
Where ten weighing heads, for example, are employed for such combinatorial addition, the number of patterns of combinatorial addition reaches (2.sup.10 -1) =1023. The use of twelve weighing heads requires that a total of 4095 (2.sup.12 -1) patterns of combinatorial addition be worked out. Since all of such combinatorial patterns of adding operation have been carried out according to the prior combinatorial weighing or counting practice, the number of combinatorial arithmetic operations needed is quite large, and it takes a prolonged period of time before the combinatorial operations are completed. An attempt to perform the required operations within a shorter period of time would be to use a more sophisticated arithmetic processing device, which, however, is expensive.